The Ciara Phelan Podcast: Paschal Donohoe opens up about mother's death
Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe says the loss of his mother 'still catches my breath and gives me a moment to step back and think'. Picture: Brian Lawless
Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe has told how the grief he has felt following the death of his mother has “absorbed” him.
Mr Donohoe who had a close relationship with his mother Cáit Donohoe said he still cannot bring himself to remove her number from his phone.
In a wide-ranging interview on The Ciara Phelan Podcast, Mr Donohoe also discusses the impact a political controversy earlier this year surrounding his election expenses had on him.
He opened up about coping with grief, including the difficulty he faced clearing out his mother’s belongings from the home he grew up in.
“When you lose your last parent, there is a particular dimension to that kind of loss,” he said.
“I really feel the absence of something that was very regular in my daily life and I really miss that and really feel the impact of it.
“I still have my Mam's number on my mobile phone. I can't remove it from the Favourites list.
“There's no doubt about it that in the aftermath of Mam passing on last year, it was definitely the kind of the acute sense of loss and bereavement, that really kind of did grip me.
“And it still catches my breath and gives me a moment to step back and think, and it does so really unexpectedly.”
Earlier this year, Mr Donohoe found himself at the centre of a political controversy over his election expenses when he failed to declare that businessman Michael Stone had paid for six men and two vehicles for the erection of Mr Donohoe's campaign posters in his constituency in his last two general election campaigns in 2016 and 2020.
The minister was forced to apologise in January, gave two Dáil statements, and amend his election returns.
He said the matter was a “massive disappointment” and he thought it was something that never would have happened to him as he is a “stickler” to get things right.
He also discusses having to deal with bad asthma as a child which stopped him from playing sports.
“As a young child, I guess in many ways, I was quite solitary because of the pursuits that I had,” he said.
He also told how he sets himself a personal project every year, and has been learning to swim for the first time since April.
